Like many women, I once
felt that
the way I wanted to be kind and also have power were as different as
oil
and water, they didn’t mix. There were times I would want to do
good
things for people, and thought about being a missionary or joining the
peace corps. Yet at other times I could imagine myself getting a
tough man on a Harley Davidson motorcycle to melt in my arms. As
a child growing up in Springfield, Missouri, I felt kind when a stray
dog
would come to our home and I gave it food and a place to sleep.
But
I also liked the feeling of getting my dog Trixie to cower in front of
me, and then I felt cruel and ashamed.

It was a revolution in
my life when
I began to learn from Aesthetic
Realism
that the only way a woman will feel that power and kindness do not have
to fight, is if her purpose in every aspect of life—in love, at a job,
with the family—is to want other people to be stronger through how she
affects them.

In Self and World,
Eli Siegel
explained:

"The self does
not want to be strong
by the weakness of others. It wants to be strong by what it is,
rather
than by what others are not…… The fundamental, unremitting drive
of every person is to be at one with things as a whole. To be at
one with things as a whole carries with it some idea of power.
And
power is not just the ability to affect or change others; it is
likewise
the ability to be affected or changed by others."

Tonight I will tell
something of
what I learned about the fight between power and kindness in my own
life
and in aspects of the 1979 movie, “Norma Rae.”

The
Fight Between Power and Kindness Begins Early

As a girl I liked music
and spent
hours listening to records on my phonograph. On Saturday nights
my
Grandfather and I watched gospel quartets on television. I
thought
it was beautiful how the distinct voices of four men—from the low bass
to the high tenor—blended together. I wanted my voice to affect
people
well and I took voice lessons, sang in the school chorus, and performed
musical skits for my parents in the summer with my girlfriend
Donna.
This was an example, I later learned from Aesthetic Realism, of my
deepest
desire: to like the world.

But I also was
competitive.
In 7th grade chorus I compared myself to other students thinking
“Jane’s
better than me, but I’m better than Cindy.” And I would inwardly
gloat when someone made a mistake. Meanwhile, I felt so unsure of
myself that when the teacher asked me to sing a solo for a school
assembly,
I couldn’t.

I didn’t think that
being kind made
me important. Having a big affect on people while feeling
superior
and unaffected was a fast thrill which I preferred more and more.
At 12 when my Grandmother Ellison gave me her credit cards, I felt
powerful
telling the saleslady to “charge it.” I bragged to friends that
my
father raced thoroughbred horses, and my family owned their own
business,
a nursing home. Yet in my mind the important thing wasn’t the
care
of the elderly residents or the working conditions of employees, but
the
fact that a portrait of me at age ten in a floor length yellow chiffon
formal hung in the entryway for all to admire.

“Every person”, Mr.
Siegel explained,
“is troubled by the drive towards good power and by the simultaneous
drive
towards bad power.” Good power, he explained is “anything that
makes
you and the world more beautiful.” All bad power “comes from an
insufficient
love of what is not oneself.”.

Real
Love Puts Together Power and Kindness

.

In an Aesthetic Realism
lesson Mr.
Siegel described the power a woman can want over a man:

"The more he
needs me, the less
I’ll need him. That is what a coquette means. The more men
are moved by you, the less you want to be moved yourself."

.That women go after this
kind of
power can be seen in the number of current books with titles like The
Fine Art of Flirting and How To Flirt Outrageously, a Step by
Step
Guide to Bewitching a Man. I was a flirt and didn’t need a
book
to learn how. I practiced how to have the most imploring look,
how
to toss my hair in that nonchalant way, and I would arrange to be in
the
right place at the right time for the right man to just “happen” to see
me. Yet I didn’t see young men as having hopes and feelings when
I called college fraternity houses and asked for Michael--there was
always
a Michael. I would pretend to be interested in him up to the
point
he wanted to meet me, then hang up.

One night passing the
barbecue grill
at an apartment complex where I lived, I alluringly said to a man
cooking
steaks, “apartment H15, medium well.” At one o’clock in the
morning
he showed up at my door and later there was sex. The advice I got
from the women’s magazines I read, was to be liberated and join the
“sexual
revolution.” But they didn’t tell me why the next morning I felt
so cheap, and why as I looked at myself in the mirror I wanted to break
it.

When I began to study
Aesthetic
Realism in 1979 I began to learn that the reason I didn’t like myself
was
because I wasn’t true to my deepest purpose—to be fair to the world and
people. In an early consultation I spoke about a man whose
attentions
I was desperate to get, and said “I would like to just deal with a man
on a level that’s not this game business, you know.” They
asked: .

Consultants:
What
in you stops you from being able to talk to a man in a way that you are
proud of? Are you a flirt? People either flirt or they’re
honest.
Which are you?

.

Donita
Ellison: Well,
sometimes, either, both.

.

Consultants:
Does flirting
give you more pleasure than anything else?

.

Donita
Ellison: I do get
a pleasure out of flirting.

.

Consultants:
Do you think
there’s a kind of mental cruelty in flirting—you show a man that you’ve
affected him and he has affected you and hasn’t at the same time.
Do you think that most flirts are interested in power? Are you?

.

I was! And referring
to my care
for the art of sculpture, they asked: .

“What is the
difference between
the way you see men and the way you see sculpture? Do you flirt
with
stone and wood?”

.I began to learn that the
power
of art is always kind because its purpose is to be fair to an object,
to
see it with respect and form. The power I felt affecting a man as
I kept him guessing was contempt, which Mr. Siegel defined as the
desire
to lessen “what is different from oneself as a means of self-increase
as
one sees it.” And I began to be educated about what kindness
truly
is when my consultants read this Definition by Mr. Siegel:

"Kindness is that
in a self which
wants other things to be rightly pleased…. A person is kind who
feels
a sense of likeness to other things; who accepts accurately his
relation
to other things."

.To see my relation to
things, and
very much men, I was given assignments to write for example “Do I
See
Men Accurately?” “Ten Men I’ve Known and What They Really Think
of Me” and “What I Can Learn From Men.” I studied men
in literature, respected and loved for their strength and kindness,
like
George Eliot’s Adam Bede and Sydney Carton in Dickens’ A
Tale
of Two Cities. I began to see that what a man most hopes for
is like what I, or any woman hopes for—to have a purpose with the world
and people that he likes himself for. And for the first time I
felt
it was possible to be deeply affected by a man and have a good affect
on
his life.

This today, I am
studying together
with my husband of 7 years, Jaime
Torres, in Aesthetic Realism classes, and learning more with each
week
what it means to be truly kind makes me so happy. I love Jaime,
who
is originally from Puerto Rico and who is a podiatrist, for his
passionately
wanting all physicians to study Aesthetic Realism and for the important
articles he has written about how good will, the real thing, has to be
the basis of health care in America. Jaime strengthens my life
every
day through his encouragement, his deep and kind humor, and his
criticism
which I am happy to need to be the person I hope to be.

Before meeting Aesthetic
Realism
the fight in me between power and kindness crippled my ability to truly
care for a man. Many women have the notion, as I did, that love
means
being the most important thing in a man’s life. And this is what
I felt in a previous marriage that ended in divorce. In 1971 when
I married my first husband, whom I’ll call Jim Travis, he was a
sophomore
in college majoring in economics, which I respected. For a person
who had seen myself as a princess who should be taken care of, I felt
proud
and kind getting a secretarial job so that he could devote himself to
school
full time.

But I also wanted to
have my way.
At a time when finances were tight I talked Jim into using money he’d
saved
for a truck that he needed, to instead buy an antique roll top desk I
felt
I just had to have. Determined I told him “it was a steal” a
chance
of a life time, and just what he needed for his study. And I also
said what women have used for centuries to have power over a man: “if
you
really loved me you would want me to have it.” We got the desk,
but
I felt awful. He once told me, “Why do you ask me anything, you
do
what you want anyway.” I was worried about how narrow, selfish,
and
cold I had become, but I didn’t know how to change.

After college when Jim
got a management
job with a trucking firm I felt we were flying high as we dined in
fancy
restaurants on the company expense account. But when he got fired
for objecting to how the company wanted to fire a man close to
retirement
because his age was slowing down work, which Jim felt was unjust, I was
not kind. Instead of showing how much I respected him for doing
the
right thing, I gave him the message that my life was ruined and it was
his fault. Bitterly I wept about whether we would be able to
afford
our lake cabin and how to tell friends the humiliating news.

Years later in an
Aesthetic Realism
class Ellen Reiss, whom I love for her great good will, brought new
comprehension
about the bad power driving me at this time in my life as she asked:

Ellen
Reiss: Did [your
husband] let you get away with too much [and] did you want to see
how much you could get away with?

.

Donita Ellison: YES,
I did!.

And she kindly explained
what every
woman needs to criticize in herself in order to be truly kind..

How much a woman
would like to
kid a man along, have him adore her and also tyrannize over him, is
something
to study.

.

The
Fight Between Power and Kindness in Norma Rae

.

I speak now about aspects
of the film
which won the actress Sally Field an academy award for her deep and
radiant
portrayal of Norma Rae. Based on a true story, it is
about
the fight between power and kindness as labor organizer, Reuben
Warshowsky,
played by Ron Leibman, tries to organize a union among the overworked
and
underpaid workers of a textile mill. Good power can be
distinguished,
Mr. Siegel explained, by asking:.

“If this desire
of mine was to
be successful, and I have power over this person, would the world look
better and would the person himself or herself be stronger?” Any
power that a human being has over another that doesn’t make the person
it is exerted on stronger, and the world in which the power takes place
look more beautiful is bad power.

.We see this bad power in
the mill
owners as they try to grind out as much work as they can while giving
the
workers as little as possible. Exploiting the fact that the mill
provides the only jobs in this small Southern town, the working
conditions
are brutal. Men and women labor in stifling heat to the deafening
roar of machines, while cotton dust permeates the air causing brown
lung
disease—which we learn has recently caused the death of one of the
workers.

In Norma Rae we see a
young woman
worn down by hard work trying to eke out a living for herself and two
children.
A relation of spunk and resignation, we see that she is mixed up about
power. We learn that there have been many men in her life.
With a mingling of triumph and scorn she says about one man:.

“I climbed in the
back seat of
his cadillac one rainy night six years ago… and got myself my little
Craig
off that Southern gentleman. He hasn’t done anything worthwhile
since.”

.And her father says to her:.

“Some Tom, Dick
and Harry comes
to the front door and you’ve got your hat on in no time.”

.But Norma Rae also shows
the self
doubt and disgust a woman has, as I did, in going after this kind of
power.
After an affair she tells a man: “It just doesn’t sit well with me
anymore
George…. It just doesn’t make me feel good.”

.

At the mill Norma Rae has
spoken out
for better working conditions, longer break time for workers. To
shut her up the mill supervisor gives her a promotion and flatters her
saying “You’re going up in the world honey.” And we see something
of the struggle in her. The job is to time the productivity of
mill
workers. She knows the job won’t make her any friends because the
purpose is to weed out the slow workers. But she needs the extra
1.50 an hour. With clipboard and stop watch in hand we see her
walking
about the mill with an air of importance, discomfort and shame, timing
people as they work. When snubbed by coworkers Norma changes and
tells the boss: “I was greedy… and I’m sorry, so you just go
ahead
and fire me.”

.

I respect her decision to
choose kindness
over an ugly power. At a time when my father said if a union
tried
to organize the nursing home he would put it down, I didn’t object,
even
though I saw how hard the employees worked for minimum wage with no
benefits.
I didn’t want anything to interfere with the profit sharing check I
got.
And while I hadn’t done anything to earn this money, I selfishly felt
it
was my due. It means so much to me now to have feeling about
people
getting the economic justice they deserve. And I love my mother
Beverly
Burk, my colleague in the study of Aesthetic Realism and who is a
nurse,
for working passionately for justice to people during the 1985 1199
Health
and Hospital workers strike in New York City.

.

Norma Rae comes to see that
a person
is either on the side of justice, or exploitation and greed and she
joins
Reuben to help organize the union. She asks the minister to use
the
church for a union meeting for both black and white workers and if he
doesn’t
stand up for justice to all people says she’ll leave the church
flat.
His cold answer is, “We’re gonna miss your voice in the choir,
Norma.”
To which she replies “You’re gonna hear it raised up some place
else!”
And we do!.

In the most
dramatic scene of the movie we see Norma Rae as both powerful and kind
because her purpose is for the lives of people to be stronger and
better
off. Jumping onto a table she writes the word UNION in big
letters
on cardboard, [slide] and holds it up high above her head turning in
all
directions for every one to see.

The camera pans
around the mill
and we see the faces of the workers, tired and hot, watching, waiting,
trying to make up their own minds what to do; and the only sound is the
deafening roar of weaving looms. The workers are deeply affected by Norma Rae’s courage and
determination. And that affect has powerful results as we see the hand of a worker
pull
a lever to shut down a loom. Then another, and another. One
by one the machines are shut down until the last is silenced with a
final
hiss of steam. In the final scene we see the union has triumphed.

Beauty—The
Oneness of Kindness and Power

.

Aesthetic Realism taught me
that kindness
and power will work together in proportion to how much a woman wants to
respect the world outside of her. And I am fortunate that my
education
continues. At a time when Jaime was doing important research on
the
computer, I had the common but ugly feeling women have had: “where am I
in all this?” Then when Jaime asked me to accompany him to a
dental
appointment without profusely saying how much it would mean to him for
me to go, I jumped at the chance to feel I was being taken for granted,
unappreciated. In an Aesthetic Realism class when I spoke about
this,
Miss Reiss asked me if I was sure Jaime Torres had been so
inconsiderate,
and she said:.

There can be a
taking for granted…
[But, do you think you can also look for trouble?]… Do you feel
persons
should come to you on bended knee and then you will be gracious?

.This described what I
felt!
And it was what I had done with my parents and grandmother—acting like
a little princess, and seeing this made it possible for me to have a
different
purpose. Part of this was feeling I wanted to study Spanish in
order
to known my husband better, and also be able to communicate with his
family
in Puerto Rico. In a class, Miss Reiss asked me: “Do you think
that
in learning Spanish, you’re closer to Dr. Torres?” I said,
“Yes.”
And Miss Reiss said something I have seen as true with every month, and
so useful to me as a high school teacher of art and as a wife:.

"The more you
like beauty meaning
a lot to you and the opposites meaning a lot to you, the more you’ll
like
Jaime Torres meaning a lot to you."

.To conclude this paper I
will speak
briefly about one of the most beautiful examples of power and grace in
the history of sculpture—the Winged Victory of Samothrace.
Power, said Mr. Siegel as I earlier quoted, “is likewise the ability to
be affected or changed.”

This work
of 190 BC from ancient Greece, has moved people all over the world, as
it does me. We see Nike the goddess of victory, striding forward
with wings massive and outstretched. We feel the force of wind as
her garments swirl energetically. So different from the way I
once
tried to be statuesque, wanting to have an effect while hiding and
remaining
intact, she seems to be affected to her very center, where that
diaphanous
garment reveals the delicacy of skin, womanly curve, the power and
tension
of muscle.

And all of this is carved
magnificently
in marble. She is yielding and strong, forceful and
responsive.
I believe she represents the aesthetic victory that every women hopes
for.
“All beauty,” explained Eli Siegel, “is a making one of opposites and
the
making one of opposites is what we are going after in ourselves.”

The education of
Aesthetic Realism
provides the knowledge that can enable every woman to feel, that
kindness
and power can work together in the everyday moments of our lives.

Winged
Victory of Samothrace.

Originally presented at a public seminar at the Aesthetic Realism Foundation, New York City.